Drawing on the Map

You can add objects to the map to designate points, lines, areas, or
collections of objects. The Maps JavaScript API calls these objects
overlays. Overlays are tied to latitude/longitude
coordinates, so they move when you drag or zoom the map.

Drawing Library: If you
want to allow your users to draw on the map, please refer to the
Drawing Library
documentation. With the tools available in the Drawing Library, you can
provide a graphical interface that lets people draw
polylines, polygons and markers on the map.Geocoding: Retrieving latitudes and longitudes
for a Place or a street address is easily done with a Geocoding request. It will return a list of
responses, each including a LatLng.

Overlay types

The Maps JavaScript API has several types of overlays that you can add
programmatically:

Single locations on the map are displayed using
markers. Markers may sometimes display custom
icon images, in which case they are usually referred to
as "icons." See
Markers.

An info window is a special kind of overlay for
displaying content (usually text or images) within a popup balloon
at a given location on a map. See
Info Windows.

Lines on the map are displayed using polylines
representing an ordered sequence of locations. See
Shapes.

Areas of arbitrary shape on the map are displayed using
polygons. Like polylines,
polygons are an ordered sequence of
locations. Unlike polylines, polygons define a region which they
enclose. See
Shapes.

Use a symbol to customize the icon on a marker or add
images to a polyline. A symbol is a vector-based image defined by a path,
using SVG path notation. The API also provides options to control how the
symbol will be displayed. See
Symbols.

If you want to place an image on a map,
you can use a ground overlay. See
Ground Overlays.

You may also implement your own custom overlays by
implementing the OverlayView interface. See
Custom Overlays.

Map layers may be displayed using overlay map types. You
can create your own set of tiles by creating custom map types which
either replace base map tile sets, or appear on top of existing
base map tile sets as overlays. See
Custom Map Types.